---
title: Reading and Writing SequenceFile Data in an Object Store
---

<!--
Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
or more contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file
distributed with this work for additional information
regarding copyright ownership.  The ASF licenses this file
to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
"License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
with the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

  http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
software distributed under the License is distributed on an
"AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
KIND, either express or implied.  See the License for the
specific language governing permissions and limitations
under the License.
-->

The PXF object store connectors support SequenceFile format binary data. This section describes how to use PXF to read and write SequenceFile data, including how to create, insert, and query data in external tables that reference files in an object store.

**Note**: Accessing SequenceFile-format data from an object store is very similar to accessing SequenceFile-format data in HDFS. This topic identifies object store-specific information required to read and write SequenceFile data, and links to the PXF HDFS SequenceFile documentation where appropriate for common information.


## <a id="prereq"></a>Prerequisites

Ensure that you have met the PXF Object Store [Prerequisites](access_objstore.html#objstore_prereq) before you attempt to read data from or write data to an object store.

## <a id="hdfswrite_writeextdata"></a>Creating the External Table

The PXF `<objstore>:SequenceFile` profiles support reading and writing binary data in SequenceFile-format. PXF supports the following `<objstore>` profile prefixes:

| Object Store  | Profile Prefix |
|-------|-------------------------------------|
| Azure Blob Storage   | wasbs |
| Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2    | abfss |
| Google Cloud Storage    | gs |
| MinIO    | s3 |
| S3    | s3 |

Use the following syntax to create a Greenplum Database external table that references an HDFS directory. When you insert records into a writable external table, the block(s) of data that you insert are written to one or more files in the directory that you specified.

``` sql
CREATE [WRITABLE] EXTERNAL TABLE <table_name> 
    ( <column_name> <data_type> [, ...] | LIKE <other_table> )
LOCATION ('pxf://<path-to-dir>
    ?PROFILE=<objstore>:SequenceFile&SERVER=<server_name>[&<custom-option>=<value>[...]]')
FORMAT 'CUSTOM' (FORMATTER='pxfwritable_import'|'pxfwritable_export')
[DISTRIBUTED BY (<column_name> [, ... ] ) | DISTRIBUTED RANDOMLY];
```

The specific keywords and values used in the Greenplum Database [CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE](https://docs.vmware.com/en/VMware-Greenplum/6/greenplum-database/ref_guide-sql_commands-CREATE_EXTERNAL_TABLE.html) command are described in the table below.

| Keyword  | Value |
|-------|-------------------------------------|
| \<path&#8209;to&#8209;dir\>    | The path to the directory in the object store. When the `<server_name>` configuration includes a [`pxf.fs.basePath`](cfg_server.html#pxf-fs-basepath) property setting, PXF considers \<path&#8209;to&#8209;dir\> to be relative to the base path specified. Otherwise, PXF considers it to be an absolute path. \<path&#8209;to&#8209;dir\> must not specify a relative path nor include the dollar sign (`$`) character. |
| PROFILE=\<objstore\>:SequenceFile    | The `PROFILE` keyword must identify the specific object store. For example, `s3:SequenceFile`. |
| SERVER=\<server_name\>    | The named server configuration that PXF uses to access the data. |
| \<custom&#8209;option\>=\<value\> | SequenceFile-specific custom options are described in the [PXF HDFS SequenceFile documentation](hdfs_seqfile.html#customopts). |
| FORMAT 'CUSTOM' | Use `FORMAT` '`CUSTOM`' with `(FORMATTER='pxfwritable_export')` (write) or `(FORMATTER='pxfwritable_import')` (read). |
| DISTRIBUTED BY    | If you want to load data from an existing Greenplum Database table into the writable external table, consider specifying the same distribution policy or `<column_name>` on both tables. Doing so will avoid extra motion of data between segments on the load operation. |

If you are accessing an S3 object store, you can provide S3 credentials via custom options in the `CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE` command as described in [Overriding the S3 Server Configuration for External Tables](access_s3.html#s3_override_ext).

## <a id="example"></a>Example

Refer to [Example: Writing Binary Data to HDFS](hdfs_seqfile.html#write_seqfile_example) in the PXF HDFS SequenceFile documentation for a write/read example. Modifications that you must make to run the example with an object store include:

- Using the `CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE` syntax and `LOCATION` keywords and settings described above for the writable external table. For example, if your server name is `s3srvcfg`:

    ``` sql
    CREATE WRITABLE EXTERNAL TABLE pxf_tbl_seqfile_s3(location text, month text, number_of_orders integer, total_sales real)
      LOCATION ('pxf://BUCKET/pxf_examples/pxf_seqfile?PROFILE=s3:SequenceFile&DATA_SCHEMA=com.example.pxf.hdfs.writable.dataschema.PxfExample_CustomWritable&COMPRESSION_TYPE=BLOCK&COMPRESSION_CODEC=bzip2&SERVER=s3srvcfg')
    FORMAT 'CUSTOM' (FORMATTER='pxfwritable_export');
    ```

- Using the `CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE` syntax and `LOCATION` keywords and settings described above for the readable external table. For example, if your server name is `s3srvcfg`:

    ``` sql
    CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE read_pxf_tbl_seqfile_s3(location text, month text, number_of_orders integer, total_sales real)
      LOCATION ('pxf://BUCKET/pxf_examples/pxf_seqfile?PROFILE=s3:SequenceFile&DATA_SCHEMA=com.example.pxf.hdfs.writable.dataschema.PxfExample_CustomWritable&SERVER=s3srvcfg')
     FORMAT 'CUSTOM' (FORMATTER='pxfwritable_import');
    ```

